The 2010 free agent class is unprecedented in many ways. Never before has a group of athletic mercenaries been so thoroughly dissected, endlessly analyzed, and hotly anticipated. Once the shenanigans begin on July 1st, all sorts of fun will be had, as so many franchises across the league will y be either destroyed or reborn in a cleansing fire.

Now, pay close attention, because while everyone is paying attention to the glitter at the head of the class, plenty of interesting things will be going on at the tail. Players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are proven and invaluable, but the summer will also yield completely untested prospects: undrafted free agents. In a typical NBA off-season, that doesn’t mean much; occasionally a team may unearth a role player from the undrafted ranks, but even that only happens on the rarest of occasions. Yet the survivors of this year’s draft seem a bit different. There obviously aren’t any earth-shaking talents in the bunch, but there are a number of interesting players that are viable candidates not only for a Summer League roster, but perhaps a spot on the Legends or even more.

And plenty of others — Sherron Collins, Art Parakhouski — are taken (in some capacity), too. That doesn’t mean the Mavs won’t be able to make a run at them after Summer League concludes if they’re so inclined, but it likely puts them at a slight disadvantage to the incumbents.

There are plenty of prospects still out there (Mikhail Torrance, Charles Garcia, Mac Koshwal, Aubrey Coleman, etc.), but the demand for these players is clear. By now, I’m sure the appropriate calls have already been placed. That makes the process less of a selection and more of a waiting game. The Summer League roster should be assembled in about a week’s time, which doesn’t leave much time for anticipation. Still, it’s worth keeping tabs on the unclaimed third round draftees over the next few days.

Draft day is upon us. Although the events of this week make moving up in the draft a costly proposition, there’s still an outside chance the Mavs will move up in the second round or even into the late first. Regardless, there should be an interesting prospect of some kind on the board when the Mavs are finally on the clock with the 50th pick. Here are all of the draft previews featured here over the last few weeks (in alphabetical order):

If the pre-draft buzz is to be believed, Vasquez and Torrance could actually be gone by the end of the first round, with Zoubek not far behind them. Booker should also be out of the question by the time pick no. 50 rolls around, meaning that it’s extremely unlikely that Dallas will be able to draft a player that’s NBA-ready.

Feel free to peruse the per-possession stats of all of the previewed prospects (and all of the players the Mavs have worked out that weren’t previewed) in the chart below. You can sort by any of the listed measures, or classify by position to compare against the rest of the crop.

Sam Amick, NBA FanHouse: “Dallas is trying to buy its way into the first round, according to a league source. The Mavs have only the 50th pick overall.”

UPDATE (7:22 PM CST):

Per Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas, the Mavs received some good offers for Rodrigue Beaubois, but they weren’t persuasive enough: “‘We’ve had some unusually attractive offers for Roddy,’ Nelson said. But, nothing that would change the Mavs’ stance. ‘Roddy’s not going anywhere,’ Nelson said.”

Looks like the Mavs may have made their way into the first round after all. According to Marc Stein, the Memphis Grizzlies selected South Florida’s Dominique Jones with the 25th pick for the Mavs, who bought the pick. Check out his Draft Express profile here.

Arkansas Senior
6’10”, 224 lbs
23 years old
Power forward
Projection: Late second rounder/undrafted

When all is said and done, Michael Washington may be yet another cautionary tale of what not to do with incredible physical gifts. Not only does Washington have a frame made for pro ball, but also athleticism that could even make NBA bigs blush. Yet after four seasons of college ball — the crash course in character-building, fundamental-teaching, and man-making, if I’ve been told correctly — Michael has yet to really capitalize on his enormous potential. That’s not necessarily a death knell for Washington’s NBA dreams, but it makes his climb into the NBA even steeper than most second round prospects.

The arc of Washington’s career is particularly troublesome. After improving aspects of his production from season to season over his first three years at Arkansas, Michael’s senior year was a step back in the worst possible way. Washington regressed across the board, and regardless of who (or what; the situation in Arkansas has been rocky to say the least) is to blame, interest in him as a prospect collapsed. A player with Washington’s lack of technical skill doesn’t have a lot of leeway with NBA teams looking for legit talent, and the fact that his production not only plateaued after year three but fell off of a cliff is glaring.

If the Mavs or any other NBA team selects Washington in the draft, it will be an exercise in faith. That’s obviously true of all draft choices, but even more so for a prospect with incredible potential but little to show for it. You’d think four years would be enough time to develop some reliable skills on either end of the court, but Washington’s unrefined game stands as evidence to the contrary. It’d be terrific if every prospect like Michael Washington would just figure it out. Not necessarily with a flick of a switch; even the mildest hint of evolution over an extended period could satisfy my desire to see a player like Washington succeed.

Doubt over Washington’s future has crept in and set up base camp. After all, how else does one make sense of Washington’s rapid decline if they don’t attribute it to something greater?

2009-2010 Traditional Per Game and Per 40 Minute Stats:

PTS

REB

AST

TO

BLK

FG%

3FG%

Per Game

12.5

6.1

0.8

1.8

1.3

.496

.231

Per 40

19.7

9.6

1.8

2.8

2.0

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2009-2010 Per Possession Stats (Offense):

TS%

eFG%

ORB%

TO%

AST%

FTR

USG%

54.8

50.7

9.1

15.9

6.3

62.9

24.8

2009-2010 Per Possession Stats (Defense):

STL%

BLK%

DRB%

1.4

5.0

18.1

Other People:

Jonathan Givony, Matt Kamalsky, Joe Treutlein, and Joey Whelan, Draft Express: “He is still very raw offensively as we have mentioned on multiple occasions, showing little in the ways of post-moves or counters…His ball-handling skills and overall shot-creating ability remains weak, and he’s not making shots from the perimeter at a particularly high rate either. All in all, there is little to point at in Washington’s offensive profile that would appear to translate on a consistent basis to the NBA level…As a whole, the big man has seen a significant decrease in his rebounding numbers, dropping from 12.4 per-40 minutes last season, to 9.1. For a frontcourt player who lacks a defining offensive skill and is not considered a very good defender, this sudden drop in production on the glass is fairly disastrous for his case as an NBA prospect.”